I was wondering how many of you get your tickets to Ram games.  Obviously there are people at this site that dont attend any games but I imgaine those that frequent the site go to games when they can.  For those that aren't season ticket holders, I imagine you get tickets in one of 4 ways. 

1 - Directly from the Rams

2 - Friends

3- Scalpers

4 - Stubhub/NFL ticket exchange

If everyone is getting good deals from their friends or scalpers there isn't anything to do.  If you are buying them from the Rams or Stubhub/ Ticket Exchange maybe there is a way to have fans of this site buy/sell tickets from each other at face and save money as season ticket holders pay less and get around the ticket master fees.  I read a certain baseball blog (of a team you more than likely hate) and people post tickets per homestand when they have extras or need tickets to certain games.  Of course if the Steelers are visiting few people would sell those at face and nobody is buying a preseason game for face but there are probably 5 or so games per year where it might make sense.  I go to several games per year and do fine selling on stubhub but I always figure it is a fan of the road team buying my seats.  With the team seemingly on the rise there might be more interest in tickets this season.

Please comment if you think this is/is not workable and if you would potentially participate. 

I was reading a chat transcript on ESPN today and someone questioned if it would be the Magic or Celtics challenging the Heat for the next few years.  The reply (not shockingly), was neither, that it would be the Bulls.  So instead of working I was thinking about how we look for the next few years.  Thinking of our own division, it became apparent we have no competition on the horizon for possibly many years.  How often does a team have the best player at 4 of the 5 positions within their division?  Only 1 is even debatable.  Based the positions off of ESPN's depth chart.  Obviously a huge factor in the NBA is production relative to salary, that is not a factor in this post.  I'm just looking at likely production over the next 4 years.  Not "Value".

PG - Moving on, as D Collison is shockingly a clear #2 until Jennings returns. 

SG - All we need is someone better than Stuckey and we could have ran the table. 

SF - Deng.  Going into the season I would have preferred Granger but Deng has exceeded expectations.  Still very young, and improving his game.  Next best is probably Magette so it is clearly a 2 man race between Deng & Granger.

PF - Boozer.  This is almost as bad a rout as at PG.  Jamison isn't terrible but Boozer is clearly better than him and over the next few years the drop off will not be nearly as sudden for Boozer as it will be for Jamison. 

C - Noah.  Unlike PG/PF others may see this differently than me.  Noah actually wins the 'less injury prone' comparison against his top competitor in Bogut.  Noah's finger worries me a lot less than the various issue Bogut has gone through.  This is probably the only position there is some quality amongst the teams in that nobody is terrible.  Hibbert/Hickson/Monroe provide the division reasonable representation in the division.

As the 4 positions I feel we have the best player are all locked up to long term contracts (or will be in Rose's case), and the lack of solid young players for the other teams in the division it seems we wont have any competition for awhile.  These teams better nail their lottery picks to give us some competition. 

My headline was for all-star team, which I guess should include a bench.  But there aren't 7 worthy players so I'll just go with starters.  Boston is the only other team where you could make the same argument but they clearly don't have reason to believe it will last past this season.  By next year they will already be trailing in 2 of the positions to the Knicks alone.  Could explain why we both have 12 game leads in our divsion.

If only winning the divsion were the goal.  At least we are ensured of having the weakest possible schedule each year to help with the seeding.

After talking to my season ticket rep he explained the Bulls now offer dynamic pricing (not currently for every game).  So tickets for this Saturdays game vs the Heat are available directly through ticketmaster for $700 that otherwise would have cost $190.  I dont know if they will have their 'tiers' at all next season.  He said they weren't sure if they will be offering tickets for less than the price season ticket holders paid for the less desierable games. 

I'm a new season ticket holder and I figure some of you could tell me about the open practice and scrimmage on October 7th for season ticket holders.  Is it worth showing up for?  My girlfriend is a huge Ben Gordon fan so if she can get his autograph it will be worth it but I don't know how likely it is she would be able to get it.  Anyone been to this before?  If so please fill me in on it.

[Commmandeering the original diary. You can read it under the 'read more' if you're interested.]

Schedule just came out, here's the ESPN version. NBA.com's has the home/away teams flipped wrong, but you can at least see the national TV games.

The big news is that the annual circus trip avoids Texas: Phoenix, Clippers, Lakers, Denver, New York, Toronto.

(my Dad pointed out - yes we talked on the phone about the schedule right away, so Bill Simmons of me - how odd it is that they didn't split up the games in L.A. over two different trips.)

Anyway I'm sure you're making your game-by-game predictions even though there's months to go before training camp, so I'll do the same: 82-0 and #1 seed.

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Game 1 - Saturday Time TBD
Game 2 - Monday Time TBD

http://www.nba.com/bulls/news/playoffs_0607.html

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